NorthWestern Energy outlines 2013 prioritiesNorthWestern Energy (NWE) is looking forward to a busy year in 2013 as the Montana utility kicks off several projects to improve its electric transmission system across Montana.

Flynn's Harp: WSU online MBA gets No. 1 ranking"Our goals are to increase access, improve quality and push the envelope of educational innovation. We have and will continue to experiment with the most promising approaches to digital instruction for connecting students to WSU."

Flynn's Harp: Cable & Howse had key start-up roleCable & Howse was a different breed than VC firms of today in that the five partners in the firm acted as a private investment banking firm, working with early stage companies to help them find funding and then immersing themselves in the start-up companies.

Leadership Montana

Why You're Not A LeaderThe word 'leadership' is used in many self descriptions, sometimes without a full grasp of the meaning. This article points out why some 'leaders' are really not who they think they are.
Karl Jones

Optimum cable sells againNew York-based Cablevision Systems Corp. announced Thursday that it is selling the cable system that serves customers in Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado to Charter Communications.

Banking at home: Should Montana run its own bank? Today, the Bank of North Dakota, established in 1913, manages assets of nearly $5.4 billion and has earned a return of 22 percent over the past decade, according to Sheena Rice of the Montana Organizing Project.

Idaho Wants to Tax the Cloud Businesses have found out that using online software services can help them cut their technology costs, but many companies in Idaho are now discovering it can also increase their tax bills.

Idaho businesses look to China for opportunities Idaho's exports to China have risen from $700 million in 1987 -- when $500 million of that was farm products -- to more than $5 billion today across all sectors. But the opportunities are going to grow dramatically for Idaho businesses as the nation of 1.4 billion people matures.

Main Street local spending is a reinvestmentIn Laramie last year, Main Street turned roughly $100,000 of expenses into more than $2.7 million in reinvestments. The average reinvestment return for Wyoming’s eight different Main Street programs is $11.71. Out of those eight, Laramie has the highest reinvestment return.

Snapshot: This is how teachers use technologyAccording to the survey, 75 percent of teachers link educational technology to a growing list of benefits, saying technology helps them to reinforce and expand on content (74 percent), motivate students to learn (74 percent), and respond to a variety of learning styles.

Best Value Colleges strive to cut tuition sticker shockAdvice to families beginning the college search: Don't screen schools based on published tuition prices. And many students can get thousands of dollars -- even tens of thousands of dollars -- in grants that don't have to be paid back.

Montana State University optimistic about growth"I feel confident," President Waded Cruzado said Wednesday, that MSU will meet the goals in its new strategic plan, which calls for enrollment to grow 15 percent from the current record of 14,660 students to 16,000 over the next six years.

Tuition needs to be phased outThe cost of tuition is pricing the universities out of the reach of more and more potential students, and the publicly funded university system as we have known it for the past 60 years will collapse. We are headed toward learning what it is like to be a third-world country.

ADUs are a welcome option for MissoulaWe welcome the City Council's action that will acknowledge the role that mother-in-law apartments have played in the neighborhoods of our parents and grandparents, and that will once again allow them as a legal housing option for our kids and grandkids.

Don't Let the Peter Principle Kill Your DreamThe principle asserts that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent, and there they remain, unless they start or join a startup to get the next level.

New State CIO Sets Sights on No. 1 Increasing transparency both internally and externally is another goal. The public benefits from seeing how their government works and how money is being spent, but so do government employees and officials. "I would like to make everything we do as efficient as humanly possible."